fashion friday....

Dearest blue dress, how i covet thee. I saw you across the way at my favorite shop, and knew you beckoned to me. I took you into the dressing room, letting you hang amongst while dreaming.... and i knew....i just knew.

You hang on my door in style...

you love the shoes i pare you with.....

you billow in the wind without regret.....

you dream on a bed of feathers......

oh, blue dress, how i love thee....

{thank you dear friend Maisy, for helping with with this photoshoot!}

How fun this was, but it took the whole day...nothing like lugging an iron bed out back!

come check out the "other" fashionista {my new bff}...Rebekah...here.

and if you love that bed, email me, cuz i'm planning on putting

it in shop next week. And, thank you for letting me post about my love for style!

xxoo

questions and answers...

Question and answers.....

I saw this the other day on someones blog, and thought it would be fun. It's always fun to find out a bit more

about the person who's blog you are reading and to see what they are like.

So, ask me anything you want {within reason people}.

You can ask about life, family, style, whatever!

After you ask all your questions, I'll do a post with all the answers.

You have till Sunday to do this because i have a fun

new post for Friday, then I will do the answers

post on Monday.

Ready....set......go...

you asked for it...

all right girls, here you go. My kitchen. I actually had an appt with someone yesterday to come and give me an estimate to get my cabinets painted. Of course I could do them myself, but that takes time, and alot of it.
I don't have that amount of time, even though i work from home now.

See the black appliances? The cherry cabinets? The black quartz counters? Well my friend Sherry just about screamed at me....."you can't touch the cabinets"! aaagghh. what's a cottage loving french girl to do?

Cute idea #1: I used an old locker basket, and it stores all of my dish soaps and sponges neatly inside, see it next to the sink? Oh , and like the chippy pot rack? I have one left in shop. here.

oh, and my beloved anthro cups. How i love the yellow tea cups. Do you know I have not been into Anthro in over one month! She beckons me, and I have an hour or two today that i just might pop over to say "hello" to the girls;)

have a great day!!

You either love it or you hate it....

A friend told me a while ago that i should put my home pics on "rate my space". If you don't know about it, it's part of hgtv.com.

Well, I did and the response has been overwhelming! People can rate my rooms, one by one, and give suggestions, or just say they "love" it, or sometimes even "hate" it.

I haven't posted pictures of my kitchen yet, because of my entire house, it's the only room that doesn't flow.

Cherry cabinets, black quartz counters, black appliances. To some of you, you would scream for joy to have that, but for me.......it doesn't flow with my "cottage" palate. The cabinet in the pic above sits in my kitchen amidst the black and cherry. She's like a poor soul of white swimming alone!

This is the room that has gotten the most "what the heck were you thinking" comments! Now, of course, i love my bedroom. To me, it walked right out of Anthro and parked in my master. BUT, some people don't get the creative aspect, and chew it to pieces and then spit it out. I mean really, who would put vintage sheet music on their walls? ME, that's who! Read about it HERE.

And here is my bathroom. It not only is the master bathroom, it's shared by Lola as well. The walls are hand painted stripes of Red and purple, with a gold stripe going down the middle. I call it French twist, read about it HERE.

As you can see, some people love what i've done and some not so much.

diary of a girl....

I want to introduce you to Alix, she is the author my favorite fashion blog The Cherry Blossom Girl. It was because of her that I even started a fashion blog in the first place. "huh", you say. Yes, I had a fashiony type blog, but it was just not going where i wanted it to. Some of you knew of it, most of you didn't. Well, it's gone. done. I've gotten some emails this last week, wondering......"where did it go"???? Well, it's moved here, to my first and foremost blog. I am the author, i can do what i want. Why can't I mix fashion with shop, and style and family......? I can! Yes, i can.


The great thing about fashion, is it's addictive. You can pull it off. Yes, even with a small amount to spend, it can be done. You'll see!


I even found my friend Rebekah posing for the camera!



Hello Rebekah! Rebekah has the blog Littlebyrd, and I love this girl. We decided that we are heading to France and with her love of vintage combined with style, and my love of style combined with vintage, it's going to be one fabulous trip. We even thought that if we could get a magazine to sponsor the trip for us, we could blog about the whole thing, and also write a nice little feature for the magazine.


COUNTRY LIVING MAGAZINE.....PLEASE EMAIL ME IF THAT SOUNDS GOOD!
{i will hold off on all other offers till i hear from you}





Okay girls, the next few photo's are of me. yes, me. Now I'm not going to lie and say that I don't like being photographed, because I do. It's fun. I love style. I love to show you style. I love clothes. cute clothes...
and if other girls can do it, why shouldn't I?

{this little dress I have on below was from the gap, clearenced at $24 late summer.} Oh, and the birdcage necklace.......right HERE.

{ and this one below is not because the paparazzi was following me, HA! It was for a post on my old fashiony blog. Gosh, i do love that hat! Bday gift from the hubby, and he knows me so well...}

{The skirt above is from my dear friend Christina's shop Sage Creek. It's a local shop here in town.} Oh, and the hat again, did i tell you that i love that hat?

I'm going to finish up here by saying that the shoes above are from Target of all places, and on sale for a whopping $18, and if that's not a good deal, they were completely clearanced 2 weeks ago for $8!!!!

So, there you go girls, the diary of a girl, who loves style, and of course her hat.

life is beautiful...

I can hardly stand it. This has got to be one of the most beautiful babies I have ever seen.

As moms, we all think our own babies are beautiful, but there are babies who just exude that.

Welcome home baby Wren, it was a pleasure doing your first photo shoot.

xxoo

are you a follower?

I know that I waited a long time for this show to air the beginning of the new season last night. Are you a follower? Who do you love? Jack? Sawyer? Kate? Or do you love the other side, Ben perhaps? Locke?
ooohh. I myself.....I can't wait to get to know Sayid.

the beauty within....

I don't want to bore everyone with MORE vacation pictures, but i thought these had to be shown. Keep reading....

What makes photography so beautiful? To me, it's just capturing the beauty from within, and i still can't figure out what my camera can really do. That brings me to my next point. How does one choose a winner to a contest when everyone should be a winner?

The first contest i held was the opening of my online shop, and i had a random number selector choose the winner. The last contest I held was in celebration of my 100th post, and i just hand chose the winner {sweet darling Paige}. This time around, i threw in a twist. You had 2 chances to win, if you also posted about the contest on your own blog.

I've had my blog up and running for just over a year, have had over 100 posts, have made some wonderful blog friends, who've shared, cared, rejoiced, loved, and encouraged. There are a group of you who read every word I post, comment on every picture i share, and push me when i need to be pushed ..

I'm growing in ways I've never thought possible. So, to each of you, thank you for coming back, again and again.

....and to the winner of the One Year Giveaway, Tara of Blondiensc.

{just let me know Tara, which prize you chose}

....and to Jen, my faithful pregnant friend,

Jen, who is prego with her 9th,

I am sending your donkey some food.

I'm back........

It was very hard to come back this evening from the lovely weather we had while in South Florida. As you can see from the picture above, this lens I'm holding is AWESOME! My hubby's friend let me borrow it for only a minute....

We played at the beach.....

The children frolicked in the sand.....

We got in a family picture in the backyard of his childhood home......

I made sure to watch the "scenery".......

I also watched the waves roll in.....

I even fell in love with sailboats........

I caught my almost (in less then 4 weeks) 8 year old smile with joy......

We collected more seashells than you can ever imagine.....

And I savored some toothless grins.......

{ I had to show some of my vaca pics, or you wouldn't have believed me that I really did get away from the horrible Chicago weather for 3 days. I do promise you that I will pick the winner of the giveaway in the next few days. I need to be able to go through and read all the wonderful comments! So hang in there girls....}